Development and analysis of the thermal behaviour of non-woven fabric made with Cotton and Acrylic blend

Abstract

Thermal insulators are composed of fibres that have greater resistance towards heat, light radiation, chemical resistance, and other related properties in their specified area of application. Major applications of thermal insulators in the form of non-woven fabrics are apparel, interlinings, blanket and sleeping rugs, automobiles, shoe covers, carpets, building insulators, and industrial packing equipment. In this research work, we have developed an engineered non-woven thermal insulator fabric from Cotton/Acrylic blend by stitch bonding process by the laying of fibres during web preparation. Here, we selected fibres cotton and acrylic for the production of non-woven thermal insulation because of their comparatively lower cost, availability, better thermal stability, for its attractive physical and mechanical properties. Different blending ratios, GSM and stitch density were taken into consideration as the main factors focused during sample preparation. Then, the non-woven fabrics were taken for laboratory testing of its GSM, stitch density, thickness, air permeability, and thermal conductivity tests. The thermal conductivity tests were carried out using static or gravitational method with WL 372 radial and linear heat conduction instruments. As per the test results, the thermal conductivity of the developed fabrics shows increment with the reduction of fabric weight, stitch density, air permeability and cotton fibre content in the blending composition.